Khenpo Rigizin Wangchuk changed my life when I met him in California almost 7 years ago. I remember being transfixed as he would ask me about spirituality in American culture (John Coltrane and Jerry Garcia). I would ask him about the life of a Tibetan Buddhist scholar. We went to the Deyoung Museum for the Asian exhibit in San Francisco and I hung on his every word as we walked up and down the aisles experiencing the sacred works of the Eastern cultures. ‪#‎Namaste‬

H.H Polo Khenchen received both mother and child text of Nyingthing from Khechen Ngaga (Khechen Ngagi Wangpo or Khenpo Nagwang Pelzang) and then passed down to Chene Lhundrup Rinpoche. Chene Lhundrup also received this same lineage from his second root Master Geshe Pema Thinley.

Khenpo Rigizin Wangchuk received the four major texts of Nyingtik transmission, teaching and empowerment from H.H Penor Rinpoche, H.E Lama Serpo Rinoche and from Chine Lhundrup Rinpoche.

This brief note on the Nyingtik Yabshyi was composed by Khenpo Namdrol Rinpoche to mark HH Drubwang Penor Rinpocheʼs granting of the Nyingtik Yabshyi empowerments at the request of Sogyal Rinpoche and Rigpa at Lerab Ling in July 1995.

The Dzogchen teachings of Mengakde are also differentiated according to whether they belong to the ʻShé Gyüʼ orʻNyen Gyü, ʼ the explanatory Tantras or oral transmission. It is sometimes said that the Shé Gyü mainly contains the instructions for enlightenment in this lifetime and the Nyen Gyü for enlightenment in the intermediate state. Another way in which this is explained is that the Outer, Inner and Secret cycles are Nyen Gyü, and the Innermost Secret Cycle belongs to Shé Gyü. The special fruition of the practice of the Innermost Secret Cycle, the Nyingtik teachings, is to attain the ʻrainbow body through the perfection of the practice of Trekcho, the physical body can be dissolved completely at death into particles, while through the Togal practice, it is dissolved into a body of light or rainbow body. There are two kinds of rainbow body: the general rainbow body, where the body dissolves completely into light, and the ʻRainbow Body of the Great Transferences, Jalu Phowa Chenpo, where the ordinary body is transformed into a rainbow-like body and the individual lives for centuries for as long as they can benefit beings, appearing to them from time to time. Such was the case with both Vimalamitra and Guru Rinpoche.

H.H Polo Khenchen received both mother and child text of Nyingthing from Khechen Ngaga (Khechen Ngagi Wangpo or Khenpo Nagwang Pelzang) and then passed down to Chene Lhundrup Rinpoche. Chene Lhundrup also received this same lineage from his second root Master Geshe Pema Thinley.

Khenpo Rigizin Wangchuk received the four major texts of Nyingtik transmission, teaching and empowerment from H.H Penor Rinpoche, H.E Lama Serpo Rinoche and from Chine Lhundrup Rinpoche.

This brief note on the Nyingtik Yabshyi was composed by Khenpo Namdrol Rinpoche to mark HH Drubwang Penor Rinpocheʼs granting of the Nyingtik Yabshyi empowerments at the request of Sogyal Rinpoche and Rigpa at Lerab Ling in July 1995.

The Dzogchen teachings of Mengakde are also differentiated according to whether they belong to the ʻShé Gyüʼ orʻNyen Gyü, ʼ the explanatory Tantras or oral transmission. It is sometimes said that the Shé Gyü mainly contains the instructions for enlightenment in this lifetime and the Nyen Gyü for enlightenment in the intermediate state. Another way in which this is explained is that the Outer, Inner and Secret cycles are Nyen Gyü, and the Innermost Secret Cycle belongs to Shé Gyü. The special fruition of the practice of the Innermost Secret Cycle, the Nyingtik teachings, is to attain the ʻrainbow body through the perfection of the practice of Trekcho, the physical body can be dissolved completely at death into particles, while through the Togal practice, it is dissolved into a body of light or rainbow body. There are two kinds of rainbow body: the general rainbow body, where the body dissolves completely into light, and the ʻRainbow Body of the Great Transferences, Jalu Phowa Chenpo, where the ordinary body is transformed into a rainbow-like body and the individual lives for centuries for as long as they can benefit beings, appearing to them from time to time. Such was the case with both Vimalamitra and Guru Rinpoche.

On the one hand the noble savage is untainted by the constraints of civilization “Nothing…could be more miserable than a savage exposed to the dazzling light of our ‘civilization’, tormented by our passions and reasoning about a state different from his own” (Second Discourse, Vol. I, p.71).He is free of moral, ethical, and social obligations to his fellow man “It is easy to conceive how much less the difference between man and man must be in a state of nature than in a state of society, and how greatly the natural inequality of mankind must be increased by the inequalities of social institutions” (Second Discourse, Vol. I, p.80). He obeys only the law of nature and lives his life by the instincts programmed in his genes “How can he distinguish what is fundamental in his nature from the changes and additions which his circumstances and the advances he has made have introduced to modify his primitive condition?” (Second Discourse, Preface, p.43). He wanders around earth naked and alone; co-exists in a state of balance with all other life on earth. He lives in nature rather than in spite of nature, he is a product of his environment and does not attempt to bend it to his will; he uses what nature bestowed upon the earth with practicality and serenity, he lives a fulfilling existence as he has been allowed to exist without constraint to something not created by nature- civilization

It is still more cruel that, as every advance made by the human species removes it still farther from its primitive state, the more discoveries we make, the more we deprive ourselves of the means of making the most important of all. Thus it is, in one sense, by our very study of man, that the knowledge of him is put out of our power (Second Discourse, Preface, p.43).

Then we have Man as we know him-in his element, commanding the forces of the universe to construct pyramids of civility as he deems fit by his numerous causes; the least of which being ‘might makes right’ “(To mark) in the progress of things, the moment at which right took the place of violence and nature became subject to law” (Second Discourse, Dissertation, p.50). He lives by attempting to bend the cosmos to his will.

Advances in social-organization coupled with the practicality of technological advances deem that civilized man is master of his domain. He fights his wars, instills the peace as he sees fit, and evolves at the pace he sets, as opposed to what Nature intended “As he becomes sociable and a slave, he grows weak, timid, and servile; his effeminate way of life totally enervates his strength and courage” (Second Discourse, Vol. I, P.57).It’s as if man took a muddy, broken back-road in the race to evolve that really was supposed to be the ultimate short-cut, but in reality got the truck stuck and ultimately forfeit the race. Had he allowed himself to evolve with his fellow life-forms as nature had intended, he would be able to run faster, jump higher- physically and instinctually superior to his society-bound counterpart.

The body of a savage man being the only instrument he understands, he uses it for various purposes, of which ours, for want of practice, are incapable: for our industry deprives us of that force and agility which necessity obliges him to acquire (Second Discourse, Vol. I, P.53).

The ‘noble’ in savage is man as nature intended; co-existing with her as opposed to in spite of her. How would he have felled a tree without an axe? Would he climb it more efficiently if his muscles were better adapted for such tasks? Is man surviving in the wild a sort of natural process of weeding out life that is less suited for existence? “Nature in this case treats them exactly as Sparta treated the children of her citizens: those who come well formed into the world she renders strong and robust and all the rest she destroys… (Second Discourse, Vol. I, P.53).

Is the whole evolution of the species bogged downed by those less-suited to benefit the rest, but more apt to drain resources as a whole? Should he cast off his clothes and run screaming with delight into the brush? Never to be seen again? Should he crawl on the ground with his scaled-brethren eating still-breathing flesh and drinking freshly-pumped blood? Should he sleep naked and alone, covered in dirt and excrement, living in a state of perpetual-alertness, ready to crash off into the unknown at the slightest sound? As much as Rousseau champions the pros of the ‘Tarzan’ in all of us, I do not believe it is his intention for the whole human race to sever its ties to society and to live free and naked, as the savages in his theory do “What, then, is to be done? Must we destroy society, abolish mine and yours and go back to living in the forests with the bears? This is the sort of conclusion my adversaries would come to and I would sooner forestall it than leave to them the shame of drawing it” (Second Discourse, Appendix, and P.125). I think that his goal is to comment on the effects of society as opposed to the effects of nature. Man would have eventually arrived at the crossroads of progress-but had he been allowed to evolve more thoroughly in a natural-state as possible; as close to nature if you will, then perhaps he would have un-locked the true potential of the human being-we only use five percent of our brain,

“In reality, the source of all these differences is, that the savage lives within himself, while social man lives constantly outside himself, and only knows how to live in the opinion of others, so that he seems to receive the consciousness of his own existence merely from the judgment of others concerning him” (Second Discourse, Pt II, P.116)

In terms of facilitating the ills of society as we know them by having worked out the programming in advance by evolving in nature to the point that his (mans) thorough contentment at having experienced life in its truest, purest form; had allowed him to understand his place in the order of existence, “How much human governments stood in need of a more solid basis than mere reason, and how expedient it was for the public tranquility that the divine will should interpose to invest the sovereign authority with a sacred and inviolable character, which might deprive subjects of the fatal right of disposing of it (Second Discourse, Vol. II, P.107); by ultimately experiencing his place in the universe as a functioning cog in the grand scheme of existence, evolving at a natural pace over millennia, content to exist as nature intended, not the bloody, angry, sick visage of humanity we have today, but of man living by not trying to understand life to his own advantage (and therefore existing in spite of reality as opposed to in reality). A sort of anthropological-blueprint imbedded in the genes of the species of a time when the natural order was enough to dictate a sense of harmony and balance, a time of infancy in the procreation of the species, having been born on the planet, itself a sentient being; all life being sacred-for we share common ingredients from the cosmos as to what we are actually made of; we all come from stars.

Rousseau I believe is commenting on the effects of society as he/we have come to know it. If man as a species had been allowed to garner the lessons from the natural world (having existed over millennia in the purest state possible i.e. as close to the source for as long as possible) then the experience would have perhaps coalesced in the genes of future generations as a better chance to overcome the societal-ills (war, inequality, squandered resources, disease, environmental fascism) when the time did come for man to leave the forest and clothe himself and live with others.

“Let us conclude then that man in a state of nature, wandering up and down the forests, without industry, without speech, and without home, and equal stranger to war and to all ties, neither standing in need of his fellow creatures nor having any desire to hurt them, and perhaps even not distinguishing them one from another; let us conclude that, being self-sufficient and subject to so few passions, he could have no feelings or knowledge but such as befitted his situation; that he felt only his actual necessities, and disregarded everything he did not think himself immediately concerned to notice, and that his understanding made no greater progress than his vanity” (Second Discourse, Vol. I, P.79).

“Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government.”

Civil Disobedience: H.D. Thoreau

Expedient- n: Convenient often makeshift means to an end.

Merriam Webster’s Pocket Dictionary: 2006.

We are all in this journey together: To strive to further the agenda of human consciousness as a society, civilization and overall as the human race. The tenets of our democracy are being tested just as they were in Athens two-thousand years ago. The universe does not have a personal vendetta against you; it is just as good a time as any to ask ourselves what living in a free democracy means in essence. Our government is poised to make or break the will of its people as we appear to be nearing the apex of our role as ‘reigning superpower on the global stage’.

Our love and enthusiasm for academia and the written word will always be our first line of defense. Think about it: The dominating paradigm of American Culture as we have come to know it is one of desensitized blind-obedience. The literary awareness that is the fundamental aspect of human expression has been numbed down to its lowest common denomination. To study humanities as a major in school is to be a punch-line for late night television. The food we eat and the water we drink is controlled down to its very genes by faceless conglomerates only concerned with their bottom line. The security apparatus is positioning itself to once and for all lock in the systems by which the private property of the 1% shall forever be enshrined in the blood and sweat of the proletariat.

What will the common man and woman offer the world as whatever is presented seems to posit trying times ahead? The health of the planet is indelibly tied to the eco-system of collective thought that the human experiment has been living for thousands of years. Where will we be when the bombs fall? What will we have learned as the earth shakes us to our very core? What will happen to our endeavors of thought and idea as we strive to survive?